The Clippers are finished ... maybe for good

The Utah Jazz danced into Los Angeles on Sunday and led Game 7 just about wire to wire in winning the series 4-3. Utah ended up winning three of the four games at Staples Center (the Clippers took two of three in Salt Lake), and it’s the Jazz who will move on to face the Golden State Warriors in the conference semifinals beginning Tuesday.

All chatter is now focused on the fate of the Clippers. Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and J.J. Redick are all free agents this summer. Bringing back the core would mean spending upwards of $250 million in payroll ... for a crew that’s never made the conference finals. That seems like a bad play. But what do you do? Let Griffin walk? Say goodbye to Redick? Do the unthinkable and wave goodbye to CP3? We’ll find out in a couple months.

The Clippers became the first NBA team to blow a series lead in five straight postseasons. Paul Pierce played his final game, closing a very strange farewell tour. Utah survived early controversial foul trouble for Rudy Gobert. Perhaps no one should have been surprised at the outcome: The game was played on International Jazz Day!

Wizards 111, Celtics 123 (BOS leads 1-0)

Jazz 104, Clippers 91 (UTA wins 4-3)

You may notice that SBNation.com underwent a massive refresh overnight. Everything is quite handsome, don’t you think?

Check out Paul Flannery’s Sunday Shootaround on the real star of the first round of the playoffs: the podium. Paul also delves into what got Boston through the first round and how the battle with Washington shapes up. Speaking of which ...

Game 1 of Wizards-Celtics was straight-up WILD. Washington started the game on a 16-0 run. That’s a wrap, right? NOPE. Boston had the game tied four minutes into the second quarter. By the end of the third, the Celtics led by 15. Bojan Bogdanovic went on a spree to get it back within three before Boston put it away to claim Game 1 victory.

Isaiah Thomas is a tough dude on multiple levels. He spent the 24 hours before the game flying back and forth to the West Coast for his sister’s memorial. In the first quarter, his tooth got knocked out of his face via inadvertent elbow. He kept playing. Well, in fact.

A big factor in Boston’s comeback: Markieff Morris went down with a nasty ankle injury. It’s a bad sprain, and while he didn’t return to Game 1 the Wizards say he’ll be back for Game 2 on Tuesday.

Brandon Jennings was not going to let Terry Rozier get his sneaker back on easily.

Monday’s Game 1 schedule:
Raptors at Cavaliers, 7 p.m. ET, TNT
Rockets at Spurs, 9:30 p.m. ET, TNT

The BIG3 had its inaugural draft on Sunday. It turned out even weirder than you’d expect.

Want to support independent basketball media? Ian Levy has a really good resource.

Ben Cohen on the distance at which Houston shoots three-pointers.

Woj on the building of the Jazz.

DraftExpress digs into who will be at the NBA Draft Combine.

Dwight Howard doesn’t seem pleased about how his season in Atlanta ended.

Surprising few, Will Barton will become a free agent.